I like the way GTwander defines the grind as just a matter of pacing. I couldn't agree more.

I see the MMO grind more as a "nurture" process. You nurture your character, your ship or whatever... The fun comes with having him reached many milestones, like it would be for a seed that you're planting to make an apple tree grow. The fun is to see your tree get his first root, then first branch, first fruit etc... A MMO must be a never ending trees, and the pacing and reward for each milestones that it reaches is all what matters in order to keep nurturing it. If it's too fast, you'll just go plant another seed (play another game) because you feel like you have mastered how to make that seed succeed. If it's too long, (Korean grind) you'll just feel like your wasting your time with that seed, and it's not rewarding enough to justify your patience.

That's why WoW nailed it so good. Best pacing in their grind ever. Combine that with a strong IP and very polished product and their numbers are totally justified.

And no, i don't play WoW. Played it 3 months and got bored, but i don't consider myself as the mainstream type of guy either. Doesn't change anything to the fact that it's the best MMO outhere, and for a long time for reuniting pacing/polishing all under the same franchise.

Just a reminder that the 5th Dimension will be released this friday july 24th, at 7pm eastern time!

It will be my honor to meet you all there :-)

Thank you all for coming to last friday stress test. The result were so satisfying, that we are officially announcing our launch date for the 24th of July 2009!

Much appreciated thanks to everyone who could make it. And for those who couldn't: It's not too late to try the game for free, as we're still in beta for another 10 days :-)

Well thanks Bureyku, and glad you like it Kayla :-) I've been addicted to it myself for 3 years now :P

The card store is now up for view only, so you can see the pricing planned at release.

5D Studios

Nuff said :-)

Glad you like it Kayla :-)

Btw: I would like to call upon the MMORPG.com community for a very important task coming next friday.

5D Studios is going to hold its final stress test before the launch of the game this friday night, between 7pm and 11pm eastern time. Wether you log to play, chat or simply leave the game running there while doing something else would be extremely appreciated. We need to put as much pressure as we can on our server before giving the final "go".

So if you would be so kind to help us in this endeavour, all you need to do is to create an account, download the game and logon between 7pm and 11pm this upcoming friday july 10. I'll give you the website adress again since our banner is still not up yet here: http://www.5dthegame.com

I thank you in advance for your participation! Come chat with the Dev team if you have nothing else better to do. We're all going to be in the gaming lobby :-)

SJ
 

For me, the term hardcore has nothing to do with the number of hours spent, but with the "intensity" in which they are spent. A real hardcore player will accomplish in 10 hours what a casual will do in 30-40 hours. But nowaday, we got things all mixt up and "wannabes who just put a lot of times in something" are now the new hardcore generation. No matter how much they suck at it.

Originally posted by dazaonline

Originally posted by Antipathy

It sounds like the OP was incapable of finding a decent guild containing mature players.

 

That could have been for one of several reasons. E.g.

 

a) The OP was the only mature player on his entire server

 

or

 

b) The OP was incapable of finding the other mature players

 

or

 

c) The OP found the other mature players, and they decided they didn't want anything to do with him.

I beg your pardon? I ran a successful guild right the way through the burning crusade expansion. The guild was made up of close friends. All of which left because of the bad community in the game. Other factors of course were - Blizzards mess up on the Black Temple and how early it was brought out and when they decided to drop the 40 man instances in the game. Don't forget the flock of burning crusade players. That was bad.

During Karazhan we let some players join the guild using the guild website etc. Most of them were to lazy to supply pots etc to the raids or couldn't be bothered to install the Ventrilo client when asked. Also guild "members" who couldn't even be bothered to tab out and read how a boss would work. All these people didn't last long in the guild. They were first to bang on the door when there was loot going though.

 

You can try to defend this game, but I'm right in what I say and I know people will agree with me. Most of them wont say anything though.

 

Well i've never been part of the silent majority so i'll say it out loud: I do agree with you :-)

Took me only 3 months to figure that out though. Guess i just saved 4 precious years to my life!

You're more then welcome to try it folks, just follow the link in my original post and you have everything there :-) (Aside maybe from opponents since the traffic is still very low so you might want to bring a few friends with you to have some good multiplayer action.)

Greetings everybody

For those who don't know me yet: I'm Seen Justice, lead developer of 5D studios. Borned in montreal in 2006, our little indi company made of 20 volunteer has been working for the past 3 years on a MMO Card Game concept. Currently, we are in open beta and can have 2-4 player games, with 100 simultaneous connection. But we plan to expand this on the form of a browser eventually where you conquer land and player city using the card game instead of throwing generic numbers in the face of your opponent when they are logged off. (Like most browser currently do)

We are going to implement a system of city breech as your city grows, and those breech will be a moment of the day/week you choose where you are available to defend. (and when others can attack you) There are plenty of other ideas like that which will make it really interesting for those who seeks an in-dept experience, without feeling forced to stick in front of their screen 24/7.

Right now, i must insist on the fact that only the card game itself is available. The browser addendum is going to be built next, hence why it's a good time to jump in and toss your ideas. The card game is pretty ironed out and well balance too, so if you would like to try it and follow our progress, you are very welcome to join us on www.5Dthegame.com

I go by the same name there then here, so don't be shy and come to discuss what you would like to see in a MMO card game!

Yours

SJ

I had that red ring of death thingy on my first Xbox, right off the bat. Come at home, plug it and BAM, red ring. About a year later, it was the CD that couldn't read anything. Sent it back for repair, and came back just as broken. So you could say i'm on my 3rd Xbox in 2 years and yes, i do believe it's a piece of shit. Not to mention that you don't want to hear what i think about their ***** over seas customer support...

Anyway. I kind of agree with the article. The whole is always greater then the sum of it's part, so if at the end of the day (year) you get more enjoyment out of a product then frustration, chances are that you'll overlook those problems so long as they don't happen regularly enough to completely disrupt the fun you can have with it. Of course, we all have a different patience meter and some might brush those problems while others becomes bitter and holds a grudge about it. I'm from the second breed.

To the OP:

You don't justify your wrong doing because "everyone else" is a crook. Especially when you have absolutely nothing going for you like AV. The "least" they can do with their shit game, is to walk the line very carefuly and show their customers they can compensate their incompetence at making games by at least showing some ethics.

Obviously, they have neither of them, which puts them at the bottom of the whole creation of this industry right now.  They can join the hall of shame previously started by Mourning, Dark & Light and other piece of rotted junk like this.

Originally posted by graggok

Originally posted by DoomsDay01

Originally posted by graggok

I think that if you don't wanna go farm the item yourself  you  kind of deserve to get ripped off in a player run economy.  Like for WoW for example I need some trade skill items , now I have the skills necessary to go farm the items I want all by myself....but I am lazy and instead choose to buy the items from the auction from the guy that either Botted and got them or perhaps the player that legitamently went and farmed the items.

 

Buying from a botter or buying from a player is like buying vegetable from the store or getting them from a Fruit/vegetable stand on the side of the road.  So should the stand owner's lose out because a store is able to make the product more readily available.  So I guess what I am trying to say is "STOP QQ-ING AND L2FARM!" Lazy players are what makes player driven economies fail.

 

 

I have to partially disagree with this. yes to a point you are right but you are forgetting the greed that people have. Let me give you an example. In Vanguard, when people first started making boats, they were going for 25 gold at the time and let me tell you, Unless you were playing the buy em up and resell stuff at high prices gig, you as an adventurer was not any where near 25 gold at the time that you could actually use boats. So I talked to several crafters and found out what every component they needed was and I went out to gather them myself. It took me several days to get every item I needed so that the crafter wouldnt have to do anything but hit combine several times (It took about 30 minutes of combining to make the ship). Well, just in those few days it took me to gather the stuff I needed, Prices for ships had sored to almost 80 gold. I couldn't even get a person to make the ship when I furnished all the items! By that time, and this was just a couple days mind you, they wouldnt even combine them for less than 40 gold. 40 gold!!!! It would take me over 2 weeks to make that as an adventurer at that time. So, again, its not lazy players that drive economies to fail, its the greedy sob's that feel their time is worth 5 times more than everyone elses.

1 question.....what stopped you from creating your own.

The answer is simple: If i join a game several years after it's out, i am at a complete disadvantage as oppose to those who joined it when it began. I SHOULD NOT suffer because i started to play a game after it releases. If said game doesn't want to offer me the "same opportunities and playing field" then every other customers, then just shut the door and don't accept new subscribers.

The problem doesn't lie in the fact that you have to work for your stuff, it's the fact that you get punished simply for doing nothing wrong, and that is: Joining several years after others. So you need a system that will at least contribute to reduce the gap between old timers and new comers. This doesn't mean removing all the hard work those people have done. I'm all for having benefits for being a long timer and a first believer pioneer for your game. But making it so it becomes 10 times harder for a new player that might just have discovered the game and wish to play it simply isn't fair for that customer that pays the exact same amount of money for his subscription.

I could go on and on about how you build a bridge between old timers and new comers. But the point is that you need to stop calling people affected by such a system "whiners", because you're completely missing the point. I think all they want is to enjoy the game, and they aren't if the economy is so screwed up that it's slowing down their progression curve to a point they can't even afford mundane items because the market is controlled by ass-holes who think it's fun to ruin other people's experience.

Maybe the solution would be to simply put NPC items for the leveling process, and only have a player run economy while you reach max level and can compete on the same playing field. What gets me in a player base economy has never been the end game, but the rags you must accept to gear yourself with because the price is so retarded that you outlevel said gear in 5 hours while it would take 5 days to farm what's necessary to get some good stuff for that level.

Doesn't take a genius to understand that this is just plain wrong.

Seems to be a trend in every type of businesses in the past few years. I can't say if it's good news or not really. This hegemony happening everywhere definitely has pros and cons.

Totally true.

Nuff said.

Games aren't fun anymore because most of them (especially MMORPG) seeks to replace your real life with some sort of virtual world they want to get you addicted to. And addiction has "nothing" to do with fun. I do a lot of fun things that i'm not addicted with.

So the game developers by wanting to create "addicting" game play instead of "fun" game play, created this trend. And let's face it: A LOT of people hate their lives, so pretty much any kind of crap a developer with millions of dollars will throw at them will work. WoW just so happen to be the epitome and largest bastion of wannabes in the gaming world. Take anyone that plays WoW (or other retarded games like that) for more then 20+ hours a week and 90% of the time, that person's life is going nowhere and the game being played is the only place where they can actually find a sense of purpose and the power to dominate their prey like they are being fed on in "real life".

That leaves those of us who are just looking to have "fun", to become completely disenchanted by the current industry that puts us all in the same basket of retarded low lifes. Sorry but there's just no other way to say it.

I don't seek a game to replace my life: I seek a game(s) that adds a + value to it. BIG difference. And there ain't many of those. When you actually find one, you find yourself being alone to play it because most people you know are just addicted to other piece of garbage like WoW. Then your cool game dies, along with the community leaving you no choice to either not game at all, or play those piece of garbage until you get sick of it. For a gamer in the heart, that really suck ass. It could be compared as if you were a great fan of music, with a musical ear, but yet stuck to listen only Britney Spears and the Jonas brothers until you die.

It's an honest question to ask yourself if you'd rather be deaf.

That's a kind gesture :-)

Kudos.

I completely agree with the OP. And once again: There's a very easy solution to that. It's called: Henchmen

If i would be able to use my own alts (or other offline players) as Henchmen to form my own group or raid, then you wouldn't have to cut the grouping/raid content out of a game, simply make it more accessible for those who desire to play in smaller groups or solo. The ressources/money to get those henchmen running would make it for the time waste that it can be to organize "free self controlled" group or raids. That can be easily balanced.

Ah but guess what... Been saying that for 10 years to everybody so now i'm just looking forward to put it in my own game since i gave up a long time ago to see it happen in any others. (NPC Henchmen is a step, but not good enough since it removes a lot of the immersion and make you feel even more "alone together" in an online games instead of putting you in contact with other "real player character". So... don't bother me with guild wars henchmen system.)

Frankly, for me the reason why crafting is never good is simply because devs are incompetents. There i said it.

It's not that hard to make a good crafting system that blends well with a loot system: Just don't oppose each other. So for example, make all the jewelry lootable while all the armor/weapons is crafted. Then you start having the gear farmers needing the crafters and the other way around.

So let's help our "head up the ass" devs get a clue here. READ ABOVE! It's not that hard... You know you can do it. Yeah, even "you".

It's a good article actually if taken in the context. Usually, too much school+study kills the brain. Creativity is like a plant: It needs sun and water to grow, and drilling it with too heavy studies and systems who wants to make you "fit in" will just kill it. So he's kind of stating the obvious there with his essay, but it's always good to have many different ways to talk about the same thing.

This is "one" of the symptom for overall lack of creativity in every area of the society. Good post anyway.